Universities React to Virginia Tech Tragedy by Implementing Emergency Notification
Many universities and schools throughout the country are pursuing immediate measures in reaction to the April 16 killings on the Virginia Tech campus.
In addition to grief counseling and safety briefings, administrators are researching and implementing high-speed emergency notification systems to address the need for immediate information during natural and manmade disasters.
Margi Schmidt, a spokesperson from MIR3, a San Diego-based business that provides emergency notification technology, commented: “We’re receiving many phone calls from educational institutions that want to modernize their communication infrastructures to better handle emergency situations, including weather-related and other disasters. We are working with these organizations to implement emergency notification systems within 24 hours.”
The MIR3 communications platform was designed for ease of use and to cut overall response time so that in the heat of an emergency, the system is set to go with minimum effort.
Schmidt adds, “In real time, you can see who has received and responded to your critical message. In the event of natural and/or manmade disasters, all students, parents, and campus/local police can be contacted in a matter of minutes with information and instructions either by landline or cell phone, e-mail, PDA, TTY, fax, pager, SMS, or other communication device.”
The MIR3 Intelligent Notification system is already in use at hundreds of corporations, government agencies, and educational organizations.
According to Schmidt, the Board of Regents at the University of Michigan, as well as several other university and secondary school systems, have contacted MIR3 to look at its emergency notification solution.
For more information about MIR3, visit www.mir3.com.
Abstracted from Market Wire Newsletter, 04/17/07.